Not quite translucent, faintly glowing, it looks like a piece of ice just taken out from the freezer, covered in a light veil. Resembling Japanese crystal candy too, it looks like the crystallised sugar after being air dried.
Always with a calm and content expression, the figurines look anticipating as if something is coming. Being surrounded by nature may be the reason behind. Tomoe Adachi is a glass artist. Her studio is deep in the mountains in Okayama prefecture, a blessed land surrounded by Setouchi. With over 200 sunny days a year, among mountains and the sea, the place is embraced by glitters and shines that would make one narrow their eyes by just imagining.
Flowers grown on the figurine, while grass, petals and birds being connected as part of the body, flower as arms, tree as the body, and with countless stars around the shoulders – isn’t it how she is surrounded by nature every day? “I wish to bring what flashes through my mind when I am working in the studio or the sceneries that I see and move me every day into tangible shape.”
Mother being a potter in Okayama prefecture, Adachi a crafty child, she did not take up the family craft though. “It seems to be better.” she says.
The style of her current work was born out of an accident.
She worked at “グラス・スタジオ透明館” glass studio in Okayama prefecture as an assistant for years. One day, she accidentally broke her ankle, and the recovery was long. Now that she could only sit, unable to perform glassblowing standing like she used to, ideas of trying something new started stirring.
Mold making, carving, filling, firing, cooling, sanding and colouring, pâte de verre is a technique which takes about 3 weeks from start to finish. The accident gave her tremendous time and, relentlessly, she threw herself into the glass-making technique as if she had to catch up with what she had missed during all these years of busy life.
“We are aware of what can be seen, but there are things that exist even when they are not visible to our eyes. For example, time, electric currents, tiny motions in lives. If we can give them a tangible form, it would certainly be interesting.” There are uncertainties in the making. Revealing the work each time is like giving birth to a baby.
The forms of the figurines look as carefree as cloud, so light that there is a sense of calmness growing within you when looking at them. The existence of all these creations, human or animals, seem to be in a harmless atmosphere.
A figurine with puffy sleeves was created in the season of lily of the valley, and the puffed sleeves are in fact the pendant flower in bloom, looking calm and quiet. Adachi creates around the same theme but, just like the sceneries in nature, nothing remains the same. Sometimes, in the face of touching moments, blessings arise, one, naturally, will gently look up to the sky.
